If you’re shopping for entry level dedicated hosting – perhaps comparing providers below the $100/mo mark – you’re probably comparing roughly similar looking server specifications. But when evaluating the value offered by dedicated hosting, server specifications are only the tip of the iceberg. Here are the things to look for beyond the listed specifications, to help you avoid the disastrous consequences of choosing a provider based on price alone, rather than value and quality.

Specs mean nothing when your server’s down

Dedicated hosting providers are responsible for the entire infrastructure behind your dedicated servers – everything between your server and its users. When only the specifications are published, what you cannot ascertain is the quality of the hardware and engineering used to build the servers and the network connections, and crucially the level of network and power redundancy.

Cloud scalability on dedicated private infrastructure takes business IT to the next level

MONTREAL, QUEBEC (January 29, 2014) –iWeb, Canada’s leading cloud service provider, today announced its new Microsoft Private Cloud service, designed to give businesses complete control and flexibility of their IT infrastructure. Businesses can now choose the Microsoft Private Cloud to quickly add or scale up virtual servers and services, without the expense or complexity of deploying their own data centers and network infrastructure.

Available immediately, the Microsoft Private Cloud from iWeb takes IT to the next level, allowing businesses to use virtualization to build a software defined data center hosted at iWeb, but managed by their own IT teams. iWeb’s dedicated infrastructure is fully-managed in the company’s state-of-the-art data centers and delivered on one of the world’s most reliable network, with guaranteed SLAs and 24/7 support.

With the Microsoft Private Cloud from iWeb, businesses can:

Extend their in-house data center or move specific workloads to a hosted environment;

Alleviate concerns about in-house data center space, power and cooling;

“With businesses turning to the cloud more so than ever before, the Microsoft Private Cloud provides them with flexibility and saves them time so they can focus on their own core strengths,” said Christian Primeau, President and COO of iWeb. “Our team provides rapid deployment, state-of-the-art data centers and network infrastructure, along with top-notch professional services to assist customers as needed.”

The Microsoft Private Cloud from iWeb is available to organizations as an extension or backup for their in-house data center, or to leverage a hosted environment for specific identified workloads.

iWeb, an Internap company, provides the on-demand server and cloud infrastructure that allows over 10,000 customers in more than 150 countries worldwide to deliver today’s Internet-based technologies and to create tomorrow’s online innovations. Since 1996, Montreal-based iWeb has been rated among the world’s top web infrastructure providers based on performance and reliability and among Canada’s fastest growing companies. iWeb’s network continues to rank among the most reliable in the world, according to independent internet researcher Netcraft. For more information, visit http://iweb.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include statements related to our expectations regarding our progress in the OpenStack community and the impact of such participation on our product development. Because such statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, there are important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These factors include our continued participation in OpenStack; the actual performance of our products and services; the reaction and behavior of customers and the market to our products and services; our ability to react to trends and challenges in our business and the markets in which we operate; the availability of services from Internet network service providers or network service providers providing network access loops and local loops on favorable terms, or at all; failure of third party suppliers to deliver their products and services on favorable terms, or at all; failures in our network operations centers, data centers, network access points or computer systems; our ability to provide or improve Internet infrastructure services to our customers; and our ability to protect our intellectual property, as well as other factors discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Given these risks and uncertainties, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results. We undertake no obligation to update, amend or clarify any forward-looking statement for any reason.

Montreal, Quebec – December 17, 2013 –iWeb, an Internap company, has been shortlisted in the 2013-2014 Cloud Awards Program in the “Best Cloud Hosting Provider” and “Best Hybrid Cloud Solution” categories. Identifying and celebrating excellence in the field of cloud computing, the Cloud Awards encourages entries from across the globe. Entrants can be from organizations of any size, including start-ups.

“For over a decade, we have been committed to providing our clients with the most reliable and scalable Internet hosting infrastructure solutions in Canada and around the world,” said Christian Primeau, president and COO of iWeb. “We are thrilled to be shortlisted for this year’s Cloud Awards and are truly honored to be recognized among the other distinguished nominees.”

iWeb is one of Canada’s largest web hosts and Internet hosting infrastructures with its dedicated servers, managed hosting and colocation services. iWeb’s operations centres shelter a total of more than 90,000 square feet of latest generation data center and office floor space in Montreal and offers a wide variety of first class web hosting and server management services.

More than 200 organizations entered the Cloud Awards, with entries coming from Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and the Middle East. Final winners will be announced on January 28, 2014.

About the Cloud Awards

The Cloud Awards is an international program which has been recognizing and honoring industry leaders, innovators and organizational transformation in cloud computing since 2011. The awards are open to large, small, established and start-up organizations from across the entire globe, with an aim to find and celebrate the pioneers who will shape the future of the Cloud as we move into 2014 and beyond. Categories include the Software as a Service award, Most Promising Start-Up, and “Best in Mobile” Cloud Solution. Finalists were selected by a judging panel of international industry experts. For more information about the Cloud Awards please visit http://www.cloud-awards.com/.

About iWeb

iWeb, an Internap company, provides the on-demand server and cloud infrastructure that allows over 10,000 customers in more than 150 countries worldwide to deliver today’s Internet-based technologies and to create tomorrow’s online innovations. Since 1996, Montreal-based iWeb has been rated among the world’s top web infrastructure providers based on performance and reliability and among Canada’s fastest growing companies. iWeb’s network continues to rank among the most reliable in the world, according to independent internet researcher Netcraft. For more information, visit http://iweb.com

The service guarantees disk speed, system management, availability and other elements often stated as barriers to Cloud adoption.

MONTREAL, May 16, 2013 - Canada-based infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) leader iWeb announces the launch of a fully-managed Cloud hosting service based on OpenStack®.

The managed Cloud service is the first Openstack public cloud deployment in Canada and the first in the industry to provide guaranteed disk speed as a standard, a key element of overall system performance. The other key components of this breakthrough service are worry-free system management, rapid deployment, Cloud elasticity, scalability and soon, a robust application-programming interface (API).

“This service would not have been technologically possible even 12 months ago,” says Mike Gero, Director of Product Management. “When we looked at the market we couldn’t find a cloud that met all our customers needs. By engineering this cloud with the best vendors and technologies, we are delivering something I am sure customers will enjoy and competitors will envy. We truly believe this will meet our customer’s performance, availability and support requirements. Due to our use of SSD drives our standard disk performance is on average 2x that of other Cloud providers and the security of customer data is maintained with data replication and redundancy.”

The OpenStack Foundation supports a global community of more than 8,800 members representing 850 unique organizations across 114 countries and is responsible for continuing to promote the development, distribution and adoption of OpenStack cloud software.

“iWeb has long been committed to open technologies. As we get ready to deploy our new generation of private and public cloud, OpenStack was a great fit for us. We have been in development with OpenStack for many months now for a high performance cloud. The rich feature set and ability to customize all elements to meet the needs of our customers has been critical for iWeb. ” Says iWeb President and COO Christian Primeau.

OpenStack continues to grow quickly. Founded in 2010 with the support of 25 companies and a few dozen developers, today OpenStack powers some of the most widely-used SaaS applications and eCommerce sites along with some of the world’s largest public clouds.

As one of the top 50 sponsors of OpenStack, iWeb signals strong commitment to the technology and market positioning. Key benefits are the open community driven philosophy along with a rapid pace of innovation. iWeb brings a long history of innovation and reliability with hosted solutions.

“We are excited to welcome iWeb to the OpenStack community,” said Jonathan Bryce, Executive Director of the OpenStack Foundation. “iWeb has had a long-held focus on reliability and commitment to the open cloud that will benefit the whole community, and we look forward to advancing the OpenStack mission with their support.”

iWeb provides the on-demand server and cloud infrastructure that allows over 20,000 customers in more than 150 countries worldwide to deliver today’s Internet-based technologies and to create tomorrow’s online innovations. Since 1996, Montreal-based iWeb has been rated among the world’s top web infrastructure providers based on performance and reliability and among Canada’s fastest growing companies. iWeb’s network continues to rank among the most reliable in the world, according to independent internet researcher Netcraft.